Frontier, Trimmor.

Spike walked his position as he was surrounded by his bodyguard team. Then he saw the red flared over Trimmor. Looks like Hunter Tam arrived already. Damn he's fast. Judging by the lack of gun fire sounds, it’s only an imminent warning fire. Spike thought. He more or less kept silent all day to learn and observe Lieutenant Moore commanding the platoon.

It’s been on a strange moody and silent day until the firefight just 10 minutes ago. He hoped his not on another mood swing.

Then thinking about the lack of penetration power of the 5.62 rounds from the M249 SP against the ogres. Spike wonder if he fucked this one up. No, I can’t second guess myself. The SAW did play vital role on other fire fights and it did save lives. It’s just, we have a new enemy that is much more tougher to take down.

Then the orcs had burst through so fast. They were like a berserker disregarding any and all injuries. His men died so fast and sudden. Not even a body to mourn. Well, I suppose I can’t really mourn for them as they aren’t completely dead. But still, this sucks ass!

With the wounded who couldn’t walk fast enough. It was going to take another ten minute to cover the five hundred meters to Trimmor. That's ten minute of time we can discuss defensive plans.

“LT!”

“Sir!”

“Our SAW doesn’t have enough penetrating power. I think we should burn some RP for our defense. Judging from what Rikko said, looks like it’s going to be a night battle.” Spike said as they were walking with the wounded.

“Yes sir. I was just thinking of the same thing. How many personnel slot do you have open sir?”

Quickly checking. “Seven.”

Lieutenant Moore nodded as he understood that it means three other soldiers were down from other units. “Well. So much for summoning a Mark VIII.”

“With seven slot, I could potentially summon up 2 Basilisks APC with support gun or even a tank from my era, but the cost will be heavy on the RP.”

“Let’s not do that sir. We can’t be burning RP whenever the pressure is on us. We will need them for later. We have no idea how things will change in the future and what we will need. It’s our jobs to do our best now so we have something left when the shit really hits the fan. Beside sir. We did wipe them out with one platoon. Back in Trimmor, we still have a platoon of the combat engineers and 3 squads from Lieutenant Walker’s platoon.” LT reminded Spike.

“Yeah, your right LT. I just don’t want to lose any more men I’m growing attached too. Sorry for my selfishness.”

“Keep feeling that way sir. No commander worth their weight in salt wants to lose their men. In anycase. I’m currently thinking about three options of weapon sir. All three are 30.06 Calibars. I noticed during the fight that that Springfields had some effects. The Browning M1918 for easier mobility, but it only has 20 round clip. Lewis Gun with 97 rounds, but not as mobile as the M1918, and finally Browning M1917 with 250 round belt, but with fixed position. These guns can focus on the ogres while the SAW can take care of the orcs.” Lieutenant Moore informed.

“Excuse me sir. But I forgot to tell you as it never occurred to me that I would see ogres today. But there are... sometime Ogre Mages that can cast magic that leads them. None of us have ever seen one, but we know that they are in the forest.” Rikko informed the leaders. “In the last week, we have been seeing inhumanoids that live deeper parts of the forest. I know we mentioned them in passing, but to our shame we’ve never would have guessed they would be here.”

“So you are saying that we should expect more surprises?” LT asked.

“Yes Lieutenant.”

“Sigh. Ok, let's go with the 20 round M1918 for maximum flexibility sir. I think we’ll issue it to all the Team Leaders and Squad leaders.”

“What about the seven open slot?” Spike asked.

“Let's wait until we talk to the other platoon leaders sir.”

“Alright.”

The platoon walked as fast as possible with the wounded in toll. Shortly they came in full visibility to Trimmor to see few of the unfinished walls being blocked off with three to four logs, and still being worked to stack higher as the convicts hustled in desperation. Lieutenant Collins shouted at them to come to the one he was standing.

With their wounded the Freelance platoon quickly made their way inside as the logs were being stacked and reinforced.

“Moore. What’s going on?” Lieutenant Collins asked as he eyed the unusual number of wounded.

“New type of humanoid. I lost four men. And eight injured. I take it Lieutenant Walker hasn’t made it back yet?”

With a shock look on his face. “No, not yet. Maybe another ten minutes or so. I’m going to plug up the walls now. And throw over some rope for his platoon to climb up. Better safe than sorry.” Turn to face his platoon sergeant. “Sergeant Gil. Plug it all up.” Then turn back to Lieutenant Moore. “You already had a good look at the new enemy. What have you got so far?”

“All the Team Leaders and Squad Leaders while be receiving Browning M1918. I intends for them to use it on the ogres, they are huge, so it’s going to take more then few bullets to take them out. It’s very possible that they could charge and smash into any parts of the wall and bulldoze it down. So we should get lots of grenades ready to throw. And they are incredibly accurate with their throwing ax. About twenty orcs threw their ax from about twenty or so meters. All the casualty came from their single volley of ax, just to show you how good their aim is. So get them before they get close enough.”

“Right. Let's not waste to much time. Lets have Lord Phoenix summon up the M1918 now so we can quickly issue them out and store the extras.”

With Lieutenant Moore initiating the requisition forms, Spike summoned up 512 M1918 and crates of grenades, plus crates of 30.06 (7.62) rounds with magazines. And extra crates of ammo for the SAW. In addition 512 flare guns were summoned and issued to the demi-humans to light up the night sky. They were given several for when one flare gun gets too hot to use.

Just when Lieutenant Walker’s platoon came visible, a terrifyingly loud roar echoed throughout the forest. The prisoners froze in fear. That prompt Lieutenant Walker’s platoon to make a mad dash to the wall as the rope were thrown down for them. Freelance Platoon ran up the rampart. Followed by the team leaders and up as they each grabbed an M1918 and ammos.

All the Freelance Platoon went up the side of the wall facing the road they came from as they could already see the giant ogres.

“Shit. They got here too fast.”

“What are you waiting for. If you want to live, hurry up and finish barricading the unfinished walls.”

“Come on. Run!”

Lieutenant Walker’s platoon slung their weapons over their back and assisted in pushing and pulling each other up to quickly get up the wall. Once, as the last men climbed over the wall, the team leaders and up were called over to grab an M1918 and tons of ammos shoved onto them.

From the wall, Spike zoomed in with his sight to get a closer look at the on coming inhumanoids. Lot more orcs and twice the number of the ogres, but some of the ogres looked different. They looked bigger and wore a headpiece made of multiple smaller skulls put together from different creatures. Spike didn’t needed to be a genius to figure out that those ogres could be the Ogre Mages Rikko talked about.

Jumping down from the ramp. Spike ran up to the 3 Lieutenants making a hasty defensive plans. “I think there are three ogre mages.” And quickly explaining the numbers he saw. “We got maybe five minutes before they get in range.”

“Not enough time.”

“Let’s get the prisoners out of the way.”

“No we can use them.”

“Where should I put my platoon?”

That’s when Spike quickly realized the lack of clear chain of command was slowing down the decision making process of the three equal ranking officers. Someone must be in charge to make quick decision at times like this. If they had plenty of time, the lieutenants would have worked it out amongst themselves.

Spike also made a quick decision himself. And his choice wasn’t because he favored one over the other officer. But it was simply that Lieutenant Moore is much more familiar to him then the other officers. Putting his hand on Lieutenant Moore’s shoulder. “First Lieutenant Moore. Take command of the Trimmor defense.” Once the words were spoken, the yellow bar glowed and changed to silver bar on Lieutenant Moore’s collar.

Not too surprised, First Lieutenant looked at Spike for a second. “Yes sir. Lieutenant Collins. Use the prisoners to plug up any holes made during the fight. And send half your platoon to man the wall on the opposite side. Lieutenant Walker. Send one of your squad to to reinforce my platoon on the wall and keep you other squads on reserve for now. We’ll use your reserve to plug up any breaches on the wall. Be Sure to pass out the flare guns with red and white flare. Red flare is to alert the rest of us that there are enemies on your side of the wall. Besure the Trench gunners are loaded with extra grenades.”

“LT! They are getting real close.” Sergeant Reckor on the wall shouted back.

Then another loud roar sounded much closer than expected. “Shit! Did they sprint!”

“We’re out of time! Let’s go.” Lieutenant Moore gave his final order. Then putting his hand on Spike's shoulder to stop him. “You’re not allowed to be on the wall sir.”

“What! Then where do you want me at?” Shit! Is he pulling a Jung on me?

“Anywhere but the wall sir. If one of the ogre gets their hands on you with a breached wall, you’ll be torn to pieces with or without your armor. Maybe tactical resupply sir! Sorry sir. I have to go now.” He said as the short burst from the M1918 started on the wall.

As Spike watch the back of Lieutenant Moore. “Tactical resupply. What the fuck is that suppose to mean!” Spike cursed. Then looked at Corporal Robinson who was always standing by him in silence. Him and his bodyguard team pretending they didn’t hear anything.

“Wherever you go, I go my lord.” Rikko said in assurance.

Around the walls, the guns blazed with each leaders shouting commands to their people.

Then as Spike's eyes land on the tall lookout tower next to the village elders house that had been built recently to counter the gnolls night hit and run attacks. “Fine, if he want to be an ass.” Spike ran to the tower as an idea came to his mind.

“Sir. I hope you’re not thinking of doing something unreasonable?” Corporal Robinson inquired as he ran after Spike.

When his group got to the base of the tower. “I’m staying away from the walls Corporal. Just like Lieutenant Moore ordered. You all stay down here and defend my tower incase the bastards assault my position.” Spike replied sarcastically. And they stared at each other dumbfounded with Spike’s last comment.

A large boom sounded as small part of the wall splintered open as one of the ogre broke through and fell over dead from many bullet holes. On the ground, not to far away from the breached wall, a soldier laid struggling to get up from being stunned and possibly some broken bones. And a team of reserve ran up to plug up the hole with the prisoners hobbling over with their chains on.

Spike looked over towards the loud boom as he was climbing the tower. Seeing what just happen, he climbed faster. Once up top, he got a survey of his surrounding to confirm his action. He saw two other ogres lying dead about ten meters from the breached wall. He couldn’t believe they were able to get that close even with that much fire power poured into them. And several dozen orcs sprawled out on the ground around the two ogre bodies. Beyond that, about a dozen ogres and several hundred orcs waited. Even though the inhumanoids were within range of the machine guns, for whatever reasons, they were not fired on.

What the hell are they waiting for? Don’t tell me they have more of these suicidal inhumanoids on the way to Trimmor. Damn. Do I do it or not?

When he summoned his Assassin S3 for SpecOps, one of the option for the armor was a 50. Cal Sniper rifle. There were many functions for it that he didn’t bother to read it at the time because of the dense forest he had to fight in. And the uselessness of a sniper rifle when you can only see on average of ten meters. But he understood that his body armor and the Longbow M99 Sniper rifle has an onboard processor that connects from his glove and the pistol grip on the rifle to generate a targeting reticle on his eye sensory projector on his helmet. It was a weapon completely useless without the S3 armor. To be exact, M99 was designed and built for S3 armor.

Spike thought his plan wasn’t too shabby as he hesitated for a second on spending the points. Fuck it! What are they going to do? Court Martial my ass! Then he paid the forty-two RP for the Longbow M99. He didn’t bother spending time admiring the weapon. He could already see some of his men missing on the wall as they were being attended by the medics. He gripped the handle as the connection activated the software to generate the targeting receptacle. He know that because the weapon was summoned for him, that it was already zeroed to him. Even though he didn’t know how to use the other advanced optional functions, he could pulling the trigger to fire a single round. Before doing anything, Spike quickly released and reinserted the ten round magazine, checked the safety, then pull the charger and released the round into the chamber. The recoil rod went over his shoulder and the form fitting shoulder recoil pad designed to fit onto his armor snugged tightly. The long, skinny, and metallic sensory module replacing the telescope attached on top of the M99.

Then Spike waited for the men on the wall to fired first. He zoomed on the largest ogre. Spike could tell that the creature was giving some kind of instructions. The he looked at the walls manned by his men. It’s definitely a different feeling compare to the goblin siege. Or is it because the leadership is different? Or is it the inhumanoids? The Spike noticed the struggle the engineers and the prisoners were having to remove the large ogre corpse half stuck in the broken wall. And he wondered if, maybe they shouldn’t have sent Lieutenant Stein’s flamethrowers back with the regular workers. If the orcs swarm the breaches, it’s not going to end well. As he watch them chop the arms and head of the dead ogre to reduce the weight to move it.

Just then, one of men shouted a warning. Pointing out another large group of these inhumanoids coming visible on the unfinished road.

“Fire at will. Thin out their numbers before the second group joins and mass charge the walls.” Lieutenant Moore shouted his command. Then the walls came to life as all weapon sang its sound of death. At about three hundred meters range, all the weapons could reach them. But it was more of a matter of aiming and hitting their targets with the machine guns. Which were not so effective for sniping.

Spike aimed for the head of the biggest ogre in the current group and fired his armor piercing 50. Cal round, instantly killing it. With their large head, it was almost impossible to miss with his targeting system. Then he quickly targeted the next one, also killing it with a single bullet.

Then all of sudden, his visibility got blocked. He had to zoom out to see what just happened, only to discover a dirt wall four meters high and twenty meters long protecting the inhumanoids from all gun fires.

Then the ceasefire was called as it would be a waste of bullets and they couldn’t see them behind the wall. But Spike understood the intent of Lieutenant Moore's earlier command and switched his targets to the second group making fast pace on the road. Again he targeted the largest as he now understood that those are the Ogre Mages Rikko mentioned earlier. Spike put down two ogre mages on the road before another dirt wall arose by the entrance to the road blocking his view. Making it safe for the inhumanoids to close in.

Shit. these guys a brain and have mages to back them up. Not good. What do we do? Spike checked his personnel slot to verify how many slots are open now. Eight. That means he lost another one some place. LT hadn’t told him what to summon. In the heat of the moment, did he forget? Spike asked himself. Damn. We either need some artillery or a big ass gun from a big ass tank. But the artilleries are still a problem to use right now.

Using the dirt wall as a cover, the second group merged with the first group by casting several more dirt walls to give them cover. And there was nothing the defenders could do about it.

Spike could hear the men on the wall cursing. And he himself joined them as he just realized he burnt forty-two RP on the M99 only to kill four ogre mages.

Once the inhumanoid group merged and shortly after, another dirt wall just diagonally left and about twenty-fire meter infront of the dirt wall rose from the ground. Then a moment after, another dirt wall diagonally right and about twenty-five meters front rose. They leap frog up to about two hundred meters then a large projectiles flew from behind their dirt wall cover. A dozen, half of meter diameter rocks fell short of the walls by fifty meters. On the sides of the dirt wall, a small heads could be seen popping in and out. Then another batch of rocks landed within ten meters from the wall, but smaller in size.

“Shit they are trying to smash the walls with the rocks.”

“Oh man. We are in trouble.”

“We need to get off the wall.”

“We’ll be dead before they get in range for our grenades.”

At this rate, the inhumanoids will have the walls destroyed with the volley of boulders smashing up the walls. Then the orcs will storm in and kill them all.

Shit. This is bad. What do we do. They are too far for the men to throw the grenades.

That gave Spike another costly idea. He practically slid down the ladder on the tower. Then paid twenty-one points to summon a sergeant from his era.

“Sergeant McQueen reporting for duty, sir!”

“No time Sergeant. I need a team of grenade launcher to serve as close support artillery. Preferably a multi launcher type that can shoot an effective range of three hundred meters at least. And I need them now. What’s it called?”

“Sir. That would be the M223 Revolver.”

“What rank are guaranteed to have the skill set to use it?”

“Corporal, sir.”

Every seconds counted. Spike didn’t waste too much time trying to analyze his choices. He simply summoned up all seven corporals with the M223, using up all the open personnel slots, and paid twenty-eight RP.

“Take charge of them Sergeant. Use the tower to get a view of the enemy and do what you need to do.” Before Spike left to climb up to the older outlook outpost on top of the village chiefs roof, he left the grenade launcher team with tons of ammos.

Realizing that the collapse of the wall was imminent, Lieutenant Moore called for abandoning the walls and taking position around and inside the buildings and setting up new firing positions. There was no point in taking casualty on the wall when there was nothing they could do. In that time another volley of large rocks hit and smashed parts of the walls, but the damage to the wall was limited from the smaller rocks. To increase the range the ogres used smaller rocks but it had caused lesser effect.

Once Spike got up top Sergeant McQueen was already shouting out firing instruction to the M223 team. The first shots missed.

“Right fifteen meters. Drop twenty.” Sergeant McQueen shouted fire adjustment.

Spike raised his M99 to look for targets of opportunity as he targeted the edges of the dirt walls for heads popping back and forth. He felt he did what he could for now. He hope to see good results from the expensive summons. Or Trimmor will be overrunned with inhumanoid forces. He pulled the trigger to see the head of an orc disappear. Only to see parts of the defenders wall smashed and weakening. Another volley like that and the already damaged thirty centimeter thick wooden wall will splinter open.

Then another dirt wall raised as the inhumanoids moved and Sergeant McQueen called for adjustment. Spike also could see that half the grenade rounds landed behind the new dirt wall. Seeing some effect, Sergeant McQueen called for repeat of the same fire pattern, but all the grenade launchers were empty and in need of reload.

Right as the men were finish reloading their grenade launchers, parts of the Trimmor walls finally collapsed.

The prisoners laborers retreated to the south side of Trimmor as they dragged their wounded with them. The dirt wall finally came down as hundreds of orcs burst into sprint and dozen ogres joined the charge. But as they ran, the ogres made a quick stop to throw large rocks inside the Trimmor killing men and destroying buildings. The engineers ran to retreat inside the buildings to set up their own firing positions. It was a mad dash for everyone.

With the dirt wall down, Spike started sniping the ogre mages. He quickly identified two from their larger height and their headpiece and took them down before they could cause anymore troubles and killed four more regular ogres as they ran then the rest disappeared from visibility from the eight meters high Trimmor wall. Spike wondered if he should have use the higher tower.

“On my command, fire each round in two seconds interval, target twenty-five meters and beyond, behind the walls.” Pausing for few seconds. “Fire!”

At Sergeant McQueen's command, large area, approximately twenty-five meter in front of the wall, on the otherside, become a place of death as the high explosive grenade rounds rain down in the area for twelve seconds. Once empty, the grenade luanchers immediately started to reload their weapons again.

Swarm of orcs were thrown in the air with their body part and blood flying in different direction. Several ogres went down from the combine explosive damage. The orcs behind them kept sprinting in their berserker rage, disregarding any sense of safety. The berserker orcs quickly covered the grounds as some of them made it to the openings in the walls only to die as multiple guns fired at them. Half a dozen ogres made it to the walls and start to savagely smash and destroy the walls to create more breaches.

Even as the Phoenixians were laying down heavy fire in the multiple breaches on the walls, in the orc's berserker stance, many ignored the pain to burst through. They simply wouldn’t die unless enough crippling trauma damage was done to their body.

Wherever Spike observed a wall being breached, he tried to kill the ogres by shooting through the wooden walls causing him to empty out magazines after magazines on his M99 as he quickly realized that unless he got a clean head shot on the ogre, they were not going down easily. Inevitably he did finally kill all the ogres, but by then, there were too many breaches on the walls that the orcs swarmed through it.

Even as the 7.62 round from the M1918 would go through several orcs, they still charged in. With their mad berserker stat, their only goal was to at least take one of their enemies with them as they died.

Phoenixian trench gunners started to lob grenades at the orcs charging up to there positions. Even as they threw their grenades under partial covers, the trench gunners took casualty in alarming rates. SAW Gunners, and M1918 gunners were no different. The insane accuracy of the orcs throwing ax were taking its effect as they got within range to use it.

With the last ogre down, Spike changed back to his SAW and started pouring everything he had on the crazed orcs to save as many of his dying men as possible.

Then it happened in the heat of the battle as orcs were breaking into the Phoenixians firing positions.

From the original fifteen men who came down from the ‘Hill With No Name’, the ones who are present and still alive started to howled, then it quickly changed into a wild animalistic roar. From their bodies, a red color aura emanated. All the spiritual energy they have been receiving from the culmination of every battle finally reached the point for their souls to move on. Each individual innately and intuitively knew that they have made it. They panted as their body screamed to let them know that they were finally complete, after nearly two centuries of slow spiritual death. Now, they can truly live. In this moment of their personal victory, their bodies energy soared high and mighty. At this moment, they were two or three times faster, stronger, and more powerful than any normal human. Unable to hold back anymore, they howled again as they were ecstatic and jubilant from being freed.

The ten men wrapped in red aura stood up from their protective cover. Even the injured. The thrown axe were easily caught, then thrown back at the orcs to be bury deep into the orcs bodies. As the killed orcs died, a wave of red energy left the orc to enter the soldier that killed them. For the injured Pheonixians, some part of their wound healed instantly with each kill. Quickly and savagely the ten men moved like lightning.

The battle buddies that were next to them were shocked with confused look on their face as the buddies they were just fighting with, something crazy is happening to them. Only thing they could do was keep fighting or the orcs would make short works of their lives.

When their weapons ran dry, the ten soldiers didn’t bother to reload. They dropped their weapons and pulled out their bayonet and charged the orcs for melee. Picking up the throwing ax if it was availiable, as they charged, they slashes, stabbed, kicked, punched, and sometimes even biting a chunk of flesh from the orcs throat. They fought like a madman. Showed no hesitation on the execution. Each orc killed with their own hands brought them more energy from the orc. Making them even more stronger, faster, and powerful.

Berserker orcs versus the madmen of the Phoenix. Two predators savagely took each other on in their deathmatch.

From the village elders rooftop lookout post, Spike heard the howls and saw ten of his men wrapped in red aura charging out to melee the orcs. Then PFC Martin and Private Gonzalez from his bodyguard team, glowing red aura from their body, left their post to joined in the madness. Not two seconds later, even Corporal Smith, Spike’s personal combat medic, also in red aura ran to join the fray. Not wanting to risking hitting his own men, he ceased firing his SAW and called for the grenade launcher squad to ceasefire, least they end up blowing up his men. Spike was so surprised and flabbergasted he simply looked on stunned at what he was seeing. His men were actually winning. He couldn’t believe even Lieutenant Moore was in that mess.

Then not ever half of minute later, more of his men in same condition charged out roaring in their madness to melee the orcs. Anything and everything became a weapons for the madmen. Some even use the limbs of the orcs to club them to death.

Lieutenant Walker and Lieutenant Collins quickly took control over the sane men. Called for ceasefire before causing friendly fire incident and had them pull back to set up a new defensive line.

The former slavers witnessed this horrifying mess in fear. They were so mesmerized by the madness that they froze in their spot.

The demi-human hunters who were positioned on higher buildings as lookouts and explicitly told not to engage in combat unless their life was endangered witness the madness. They were almost hypnotized by what they were seeing. Never would they have guessed in their wildest dream that their new masters were such savages. They felt the newfound fear for the Phoenixians.

Every orc killed made the fight go faster as the Spike’s lunatics became stronger. It was as if they were saying to the orcs ‘so you got berserking, than we got something better’. By now, all the soldier who joined the melee were covered in green blood. Not an inch was spared as they were completely drenched in orc blood.

As the last orc was gutted out, the surviving seventeen men threw their head back and roared their might howl. It was as if they were trying to expel the energy within themselves. When their howling was over, a very clear and distinct feature was left behind on their body as the red aura faded. Just like Spike, these men’s iris in their eyes had completely turned red.